College Friends with Amy Sutjahjo

Alex sits down with her childhood friend, Amy, to discuss her college friendships and the life-long bonds created by experiencing a transformative time in life together. Amy shares how her large group of college friends came to be so close, even after 13 years. From college dorm rooms to wedding alters, Amy shares tips on how to maintain healthy relationships with friends, how to navigate disagreements, breakups, and moving distances. She encourages us to make memories with friends, whether via a big vacation or by simply sharing meals. And emphasizes the importance of being open to new people, being true to yourself, and not putting too much pressure on yourself. You can find her in Instagram @amyygator.

Show notes:

• Intro to Amy Sutjahjo
• Alex and Amy’s childhood history and living together
• Amy’s social circles: high school, college, family, husband's friends, professional friends.
• College is a transformative time. Lots of freedom, close proximity in dorms & cafeterias
• Close proximity & consistency makes building memories easier. Takes a bit more time to make sure to continue making memories despite some distance.
• Alex has a different relationship with her college friends because of lack of proximity & consistency post-college
• Bonding through dorms, partying, dining hall, library, gym, and guitar hero.
• Value of inclusive behavior among single and coupled friends
• Developing strong bonds with each person in a group is important and can lead to differences of opinions, but it’s important each person comes to their own conclusion.
• Larger groups of friends invite diverse personalities, which cause  disagreements sometimes
• Importance of treating each other with mutual respect despite opposing opinions
• There doesn’t have to be a dramatic change in defining the change of the relationship (for friends). Sometimes it’s ok to let friends change as your life changes
• How Amy’s friends gave her the room to form her own opinion about a particularly “unhealthy” friend
• How to be considerate when a friend-couple breaks up, and how to split time, and communicate clearly
• Pressures of “picking sides” after a breakup can be present, but it depends on each person’s individual relationship/ friendship
• Value of “going through life together”, celebrating milestones, and helping each other through tough times.
• Amy’s 10 year vision for her and her friends: homes, children, pets
• Whether Amy and her friends plan on having kids at the same time. It would be nice, but depends on peoples’ preferences.
• Amy’s scenario planning for how to hang with friends while balancing childcare
• Final advice: find people with similar core values, people that you feel comfortable with, and feel like you can be yourself around. 
• Make memories together, whether taking a trip, or eating fast food and chatting for hours- memories can be created in so many different ways. 
• Reminders to not put too much pressure on yourself, know yourself, and figure out who you trust. Be open to different types of people.
• Importance of laughter in friendship

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 Connect to the show
Instagram: RacyFriendship
Website: www.racyfriendship.com
Email: racyfriendship@gmail.com

Music on the show provided by: Podcast.co